


A Marriage of Two Parts

by Kataclysmic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Co-workers, Daily Prophet, Divorce, F/M, Jossed, Journalists, Marriage, Post-Hogwarts, married
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-09-22 18:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17064785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kataclysmic/pseuds/Kataclysmic
Summary: After years of marriage and months of separation, Draco convinces his soon to be ex-wife to cover one more story together for the Daily Prophet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Includes shameless thievery from His Girl Friday.

Hermione was angry - no, furious. Livid, one might say.

She stormed through the main newsroom and unweighted parchments fluttered into the air at her haste. The usual chatter, bustle, and even the whistle of the floo seemed to quiet as she marched past, robes billowing out behind her, and a few interns to the Daily Prophet actually cowered a little behind their desks. Several former friends and colleagues smiled apprehensively at Hermione, but at her obvious irritable mood, nobody actually tried to speak to her. Nobody, that is, except for Colin, former irritating schoolmate and now the highest paid photographer working for _The Daily Prophet_.

“Hermione, hi!” he began, obviously hoping to slow her progress to her destination – the editor's office.

“I'm sorry, Colin, I only have a few minutes. Jonathan's waiting for me.” She pushed past the young blond man, and made her way further through the throngs of desks and photocopiers. 

Finally, she reached her destination, and pushed open the door with a determined flourish. “Draco Malfoy,” she barked, looking for the room's sole occupant.

Life had been kind to Draco Malfoy – sometimes _too_ kind, Hermione often thought. After school, after the war, after the trials and the payoffs and bribes, he'd somehow found himself as the editor of the paper that had continually trashed Harry throughout his adolescence, determined to turn it from borderline-paparazzi trash to a respectable broadsheet. And turn it around he had, so much so that when Hermione finally settled on a career after offer after offer had flooded her floo and letterbox, journalism had won out, and Hermione had held the coveted title of headlining reporter for _The Daily Prophet_.

Her address to him had the office chair behind the desk spin round, and revealed the man she was looking for, sitting comfortably in the dragon-hide upholstered chair. “Hermione,” he greeted her. His voice was pleasant enough, but his mouth – the mouth she knew _so_ well – gave his motives away with a touch of a sneer: he was already playing with her. “What brings you here?”

“What,” Hermione began, kicking the door shut behind her and approaching his desk. “Aren't you pleased to see your ex-wife?”

“Not so hasty, sweetheart, nothing's official yet,” he told her, looking remarkably pleased with himself.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She'd been pushing for him to sign the divorce papers for months, but this was the first time she'd come in person to see him, and it seemed that this had been his very intention. A six-month estrangement after a five-year marriage, and still she knew his tells so well. She'd guessed he was going to propose two weeks before he actually worked up the courage to do so, and she had known instinctively that he'd been lying about the presence of a stripper at his stag do. Still, Hermione thought to herself, demanding he sign a piece of parchment declaring the end of their marriage was really not the best time to reminisce about how they had first gotten together.

“I've been asking for these papers for months, Draco.” Her voice had meant to sound harsh, commanding, but somehow it came out a little less reprobative than she intended, and a little sweeter. “You know Jonathan and I are waiting on this.”

“Come on, why are you marrying this bloke? I've known you to prepare for exams for longer than you've prepared for _this_ marriage.”

“Don't be ridiculous Draco, it doesn't become you,” she answered sharply, not wanting to dwell on the subject. The truth was, Draco was right – their “courtship” had been rather rushed, and the wedding planned in certain haste, but at least her (soon to be) ex-husband hadn't dallied upon the actual reason. Hermione had always had a certain knack for adopting lost causes, and Jonathan was certainly a lost cause if ever she'd encountered one. He and Harry were _made_ for each other.

“It's been at least half a year since we were hurling staplers and highlighters at one another, can't you at least try to be civil?”

“So long?” Hermione asked, smiling a little evilly as she picked up a stapler from his desk and toyed with it. “It seems like I threw one at you only yesterday.”

“Maybe it was yesterday; have you been seeing me in your dreams, sweetheart?” Draco leered at her with his well-practiced smirk. He began spinning from left to right in his chair, and he parted his legs ever so slightly. Hermione knew he was thinking about the time they last sat on his office chair together – well, perhaps “sat” wasn’t quite the right verb; after the kissing, after the shedding of clothing, after the sex, the love and the sweat, Draco had complained furiously about the state of the antique leather.

Hermione snorted. “More like my nightmares.”

“Aw, c'mon, don't be mean. You make a bloke feel unwanted,” Draco answered, sounding more smooth than hurt. It was the same butter-smooth, petulant voice he used on her when she used to stay up late and not join him in bed until the early hours. And damn him, it still made her thighs twitch together in a hint of anticipation. She was supposed to be divorcing him; he wasn't supposed to still make her feel like this.

“I hear you've had plenty of women to make you feel _wanted_ ,” she bit out acerbically, thinking it served him right for making her feel like _this_ , and berating herself at the same time for how bloody jealous she sounded. 

His lips quirked. “Jealous?”

“Of your latest little trollop? Hardly. Now if you'll just sign-” The swoop of Draco's owl into the office temporarily quietened her instructions.

The owl dropped a note into Draco’s lap and swooped over the Hermione as Draco read the note. The owl’s obvious favouritism of Hermione over Draco had always irked him, but he didn’t comment. The note had elicited the most curious of expressions on his face, his lips tilting into the faintest smirk.

Hermione petted the owl that she had become so familiar with over the years fondly, and it nuzzled her cheek in return.

Draco tapped the note with his wand and it burst into flames. He abruptly changed the subject: “How’s Potter?”

“Harry… Harry’s fine,” Hermione said distractedly. “What was the memo about?”

“Hermione, if you are so determined to be my ex then you must accept that you’re no longer privy to know everything about me.”

Hermione sighed. “Draco, I never knew everything about you at the best of times, and if that’s the best you can come up with… then, well!”

That had been part of the problem that had ended their marriage. Hermione had wanted to know everything that there was to know about her husband, and secrecy was in his nature. They’d fallen in love against the odds, against the advice of the other female columnists at the paper, against the blessing of some of her friends, and to the condemnation of his friends and estranged family. 

One evening after a late finish to the day and narrowly getting the paper to press, Draco had invited Hermione out for a drink. It wasn’t unusual – every Friday night she saw him disappear with a different young woman from the building, and the same woman would keenly watch him and try to catch his eye the following Monday. Hermione was quite determined not to end up the same as all those silly girls, but his face was flushed from the stress of meeting the deadline, and she was riding on a high of adrenaline having finally finished. She agreed on a whim – they’d been working alongside each other for sometime and were friendly enough… the hatred they’d known when they were children seemed to have abated. Plenty of her friends enjoyed a drink after work with colleagues so why should this be any different? Besides, after the day she’d had, she certainly fancied a glass or two of Magic Merlin.

That night, Draco surprised her. He wasn’t the smarmy git she was half-expecting him to become as soon as they stepped out of the professional setting, nor did he try to put his hand up her skirt. Draco listened and only made a few disparaging comments when she told him about what their old schoolmates were up to. He made sure she was safely into the floo before making his own way home.

The following Friday, after a less eventful afternoon, Hermione surprised herself when she asked him out for a drink. 

“Look,” she eventually continued, trying not to reminisce. “Will you just sign the silly papers. I honestly don’t know why you must persist in delaying the entire process.”

Draco glanced idly around the room, his expression mild. Hermione thought he looked as if he was pondering what flavour of Bertie Bott’s he might like, instead of the end of their marriage. “I’ll have my lawyer look over the papers,” he said eventually.

Hermione inhaled deeply, willing herself not to shriek in exasperation. “You’ve already had Blaise look over them four times, and they haven’t changed.”

“No, I don’t suppose they have changed,” he replied strangely.

Hermione rolled her eyes and stalked out of the office – clearly she was getting nowhere, and she was late to meet Jonathan and Harry for coffee. She had hoped she would have had better news for them.

**

“I’m really sorry,” she announced as she plonked herself down in front of her companions. “He still won’t budge. It’s getting so tedious! I shouldn’t have promised you guys this when I didn’t know if I could deliver…”

“It’s alright ‘Mione,” Harry replied. He gave Jonathan’s knee a gentle squeeze that Hermione couldn’t help but notice. The sight made her body have an uncomfortable shiver; she had come to terms with the end of her relationship with Draco, but the little moments of intimacy she observed between her friends still gave her a moment’s regret. “We all should have anticipated him being difficult; it’s been his raison d’etre in life to antagonise me.”

“Harry, I never told him it was for you… as far as Draco is concerned, Jonathan and I are lovers.” Hermione bit her lip, and gave the pair an apologetic smile.

Jonathan startled her with his laugh. “He can’t possibly believe that! No offence, Hermione, but I think it’s quite obvious to anyone who has seen us that I’m not remotely attracted to you.” His lilting, accented voice was full of amusement. Jonathan was a muggle artist from South Africa – someone who had never heard of _The Boy Who Lived_ when he met Harry. The two had tried long-distance for two years, and despite the relative ease of travel made by apparating and the floo network, they had wanted to continue their relationship in one country, and with Harry’s job at the Ministry, they had settled on living together in England. Jonathan’s visa proved difficult to get hold of – Muggle authorities wouldn't bend the rules for the Boy Who Lived - and that is where Hermione had stepped in.

She shrugged. “I just didn’t want to complicate things… I thought if Draco believed I was moving on he’d be more willing. I didn’t want to complicate anything or risk Draco informing the authorities or something. This isn’t strictly approved of, you know.”

Harry slurped on the last of his latte, before beckoning the waitress over for another round. “I think you’ve done the opposite – of course he doesn’t want to let you go to another man, Hermione. Malfoy is nothing if not proud, and I know you don’t believe it, but he’s cut up about this whole thing. We all may have hated him, but he _loved_ you.”

“Oh come on, Harry,” Hermione replied. She had dwelled on this to some length herself, and couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Draco had made his feelings quite clear when he’d continually refused to let her in, and not so much as blinked when she’d given him final ultimatums. She had loved him, she had never wanted it to come to the end that it did. “He’d be just as awkward if he knew I was marrying Jonathan for you, rather than me.”

“I agree with Harry, Hermione. From what you and Harry tell me it is quite obvious he reciprocated your feelings very deeply.”

“Oh I suppose he did _once_ ,” she replied, with a false sense of airiness. “It’s just quite obvious to me that he doesn’t anymore!”

**

Despite the brevity of her time spent with Draco that afternoon, going over it with Harry and Jonathan had brought up a lot of unwanted memories, and Hermione couldn’t help herself from dwelling on them. He had been the most important part of her life for six years – she was fooling herself if she thought she was over him, but she had no doubt that Harry and Jonathan had had no trouble in seeing through her guise. She just hoped she hadn’t been so transparent in front of Draco.

Instead of browsing her dwindling kitchen supplies for something for dinner, she reached for a bottle of red and poured herself a glass. 

She and Draco hadn’t begun sleeping together the night of their second after-work drink, despite what the subsequent office gossip dictated. _Why else would Draco go out with her again?_ the catty gossip columnist had hissed when Hermione had dashed back into the office on the fourth Friday, having forgotten her handbag. _Though why he’d want to go_ there _twice…_

Hermione hadn’t balked at the comment as she would have done when she was much younger, but hurried back to the bar where she’d left Draco. They had become friends; they’d chat briefly before staff meetings, laugh over the silly errors of some of their junior colleagues, and share drinks at the end of every week. Harry and Ron thought it absolutely ridiculous – how on earth could she become friends with that git? Hermione couldn’t defend him completely. He was still an absolute idiot at times, still disgustingly obsessed with his own personal superiority (his good looks, his intellect, his charming personality, now - no longer his blood), still a complete snob, and still positively vile to those he thought deserved it. But he entertained her, she relished time spent with someone who shared her passion for history but didn’t seem so old they were part of it, and he constantly made her laugh. She could easily discuss work with him, without having to pause and explain the workings of a newspaper like she did with Harry and Ron. She enjoyed spending time with him, and believed he did with her. She’d also noticed he was spending considerably less time chatting up any of the other women who lurked near the coffee machine when he walked by.

Hermione was startled from her reverie when she heard a ‘pop’ from the fireplace, and was only mildly surprised to see Draco’s face looming amongst the hot embers.

“Hermione,” he began, pleasantly enough.

“Unless you are going to hand me those papers – signed – I have nothing to discuss with you, Draco.” 

“Oh come on now, I thought you wanted to move on… be friends,” he said, a smirk coiling the edges of his mouth upwards.

“I never said anything about wanting to be friends again, Draco,” she replied tightly. “I just wanted this done with.”

“Ah, of course, so you could continue in arranging the impending nuptials. How romantic. Tell me, how does Jonathan feel about you still being married to your dashing ex?”

“We’re not talking about this Draco,” Hermione replied, this afternoon’s exasperation creeping back into her voice. “We’re not friends.”

“And why not?” He was clearly enjoying this – verbal sparring was always a favourite pastime of his, whether over _The Daily Prophet_ ’s Sunday crossword or where their future children would be educated until they turned eleven.

“Friends share things with one another,” she bit out. “Something you were never very good at.”

Draco’s face shut down imperceptibly. The sly smirk that had played on his lips flattened out, and the gleam faded from his eyes.

“Blaise looked over the papers this afternoon. There’s no mention of a settlement.”

Of course, back to business. Hermione had spent years trying to get him to open up to her, and he was a master at changing the subject – subtly or not.

“I have no need for your money or your estates, Draco, and I’m sure there’s nothing of mine you could possibly want for.”

“Suit yourself, but at the very least – you know there’s always a job for you at _The Daily Prophet_ ; it’s not the same without my very own Lois Lane… we were a great team, Hermione.” 

Hermione narrowed her eyes. She knew that voice, knew the tone, how he’d try and get his way by flattering her. The truth was, he was right, she’d lost some of her flair since she’d been writing freelance, and an awful lot of headlines, but she could no longer work at _The Daily Prophet_ with him. “The paper will just have to learn to cope without me, Draco, as will you. Whatever excuse will you come up with to talk to me once you finally sign those damn papers?”

“Oh, I’ll always make time for you Hermione, you know that,” he replied, the trademark smirk back in place. 

“That’s not what I meant,” she snapped, then paused, when she heard a familiar sound echoing from the fireplace. The clackity-clack of a typewriter, and the creak of that damn antique chair. “Are you still at work?”

“Why, yes I am. Fancy popping down to the office with a takeaway and bottle of wine? I used to love it when you did that.”

Hermione winced, and remembered the first time she did do that; the first time, after all of those Friday nights, that they finally kissed.

It had been a Sunday afternoon, _The Daily Prophet_ virtually empty, and Draco was in his office trying to finish a story for the first edition the following day. Hermione knew about his deadline, and cried off early from an afternoon picnic with the Weasleys, claiming she had a little work to finish off at the paper.

She arrived with sausage rolls and jam sandwiches in hand, offering them to Draco who gratefully told her he’d been surviving on coffee alone all day. He had initially sneered at the food – hardly the fine cuisine that the Malfoy heir was used to, but accepted it nonetheless. “Are these… these “sandwiches” supposed to be a sweet or savoury?” he asked, munching through a raspberry jam sandwich. “It’s quite ingenious. Do you have any more squirreled away in your bag?”

“Draco,” Hermione laughed. “How on earth have you gone twenty-four years without ever having a jam sandwich?!”

In truth, all that she had in her handbag was her purse, wand, an odd collection of pens, quills, make up and scraps of parchment, and a bottle of red wine that Arthur had insisted she take. She waved the wine at Draco. “It’s the only consumable I’ve got in here, I’m afraid.”

“Perfect,” he announced, and summoned two glasses. “A glass each will get the creative juices flowing again!”

Hermione poured reluctantly. It wasn’t that she was a cheap drunk, but she was definitely a chatty one. She was talkative at the best of times, but all it took was a glass of chardonnay last weekend for her to start blabbing to Ginny all the thoughts that she’d been having about the very man in front of her. She was only half-aware she’d been having these _thoughts_ , quietly avoiding them, and continuing to spend time with her new found friend. Was it her fault that her traitorous mind had taken the drinks and the laughter and the late nights as something more? It hadn’t helped that Ginny had pounced on the idea, and now Hermione couldn’t shake it from her mind. She’d certainly have to watch her tongue in front of Draco. She considered him a friend now, and she believed he regarded her in the same fashion, but their teenage history still ebbed between them

“You have er, a bit of jam around your mouth,” she told him, as she stood up to pass him his glass. 

Draco licked his lips boyishly, and felt something hot swoop through her. It was a feeling that was becoming increasingly familiar as she spent time with him.

“No, look, you’ve missed it,” she continued. She stepped closer, and swiped at the sugary filling with her thumb. She waved the blob of jam in front of his face, and was barely able to comprehend the sudden intense look in Draco’s eyes before he sucked her thumb into his mouth, and sucked the sticky preserve from the tip of her digit.

The sudden wet heat of his lips around her thumb startled Hermione and, caught between surprise and a startling arousal, she did not draw back her hand. 

Draco’s tongue circled her thumb, and he eventually released her with a slow half-kiss to the tip.

In what Hermione later described to Ginny as a very clichéd move, Draco captured the wrist hovering in front of his face, and pulled Hermione down into his lap. He kissed her with no preamble, and Hermione barely had time to consider whether he’d been thinking about this as much as she had before she kissed him back, moving her mouth against his and winding her hands into his hair.

It was electric and so unexpected; Hermione could hardly form a coherent thought. All she was aware of was the magnificent, hot body pressing into her, and Draco’s hands winding carefully all over her neck and back, occasionally tugging on her hair and making her moan into his mouth. His mouth, his tongue, his hands, Merlin, even the slight stubble that burnt against her cheeks – it all felt incredible, and she couldn’t get enough. She ground down against his thighs she was perched on and Draco span the chair beneath them around on its axis so that she was pressed between his body and the edge of his desk.

“Draco, you do realise we’re going to be exes and you can’t expect me to be at your beck and call at all hours,” she said sweetly, echoing his words from earlier in the day. She was unable to say anything more, too consumed with memories of their first kiss. Dousing the fire, Hermione left the room and ended their conversation.


	2. Chapter 2

Contrary to what his wife seemed to believe, Draco did not want his relationship with her to end. Or have ended, as it apparently had done. 

He understood where things had broken down, where Hermione had pushed for more than he could give; he had become defensive, and she more enraged. It was a hopeless circle that they needlessly dug themselves into as far as Draco could tell. They were _married_ , for Merlin’s sake. He hadn’t thought that the arguments meant the end of anything; he knew she was annoyed at him and that he should try and be more open with her, he knew that when she stayed at Potter’s for two weeks that it wasn’t a great sign… but he never expected two weeks to turn into three, then four, then she had a flat of her own and they were _over_. 

It wasn’t until she resigned from _The Daily Prophet_ that he realised she was truly serious. They’d fought over it, of course. He refused to accept her resignation – this paper needed her, and while he loathed to admit it aloud, _he_ needed her. Draco had become renowned for turning the paper around, but in truth, it was as much her doing as it was his – they’d worked hard together. He felt Hermione’s loss everywhere he turned.

Draco had never kept anything from Hermione – not intentionally, anyway. She just had so many questions: about his childhood, his ancestry, his favourite brand of ink, whether he preferred penne or fusilli pasta, who he had spoken to over the course of his day… it was endless. A man was entitled to some privacy, surely? She had wanted to know every bloody thing… and everything had erupted from there. Hermione was convinced he was hiding something _serious_ , throwing his past and his heritage in his face, and what was he supposed to say to _that_? ‘Sorry darling, you’ve caught me – I still entertain thoughts of using the dark arts to attack poor, defenceless muggles.’ Great Circe, he ate turkey and sprouts and cranberry sauce with her parents every December – if that wasn’t acceptance, he didn’t know what was.

Six months later, she wasn’t throwing hole punches anymore, but she was barely speaking to him. How was he supposed to win her back if she didn’t let him so much as _try_ and seduce her again? He was pulling at threads, looking for excuses, when she dropped the Jonathan bombshell – practically ‘hurry up with the divorce dear, I’ve met someone else.’ He’d had no idea she was seeing someone, let alone seriously enough to discuss marriage. And to think she called _him_ a dark horse.

When she walked into his office, it was the first time he had seen her in months, and the realisation of how much he’d missed her hit him like a physical blow. He was glad he was facing the other way when she walked in unannounced, he didn’t think he would have been able to contain himself otherwise.

“What brings you here?” he greeted her, unable to resist a smile – perhaps this meant he was finally getting somewhere.

“What,” Hermione retorted, edging closer. “Aren't you pleased to see your ex-wife?”

Draco was more than pleased to see her – she was practically glowing. He was still as attracted to her as the day he’d licked jam from her fingers, before fucking her on the very chair on which he now sat. That afternoon in his office had been incredible – he’d wanted her for _months_. 

Hermione had started at the Prophet only two weeks after he had; Draco had only just settled into the role when she had entered the newsroom for the first time, robes perfectly starched, quills neatly lined up, a stack of leads already prepared, a brave smile on an obviously nervous face – so incredibly like the girl he remembered from school. At school, however, he’d never looked twice at her arse, nor fantasised about dragging her into a supply closet. 

Wartime reparations had been made; Draco was not only a free man, but considered largely guilt-free by all who mattered. There was still… tension. Potter was mostly civil when their paths crossed (if you can call ignoring someone being civil, which Draco didn’t), and Weasley would usually glare from across the room. Of the golden trio, only Granger had ever greeted him like a former school-mate rather than sworn enemy. Draco was fairly sure that despite her being willing to let bygones be bygones, she was hardly going to let him chat her up over the water cooler like another one of the flirty girls from the office. Draco rather liked those girls, but suspected she probably judged them a little bit.

While Draco would never admit this to her, in the months preceding that Sunday afternoon in his office, she had sent him a little bit mad. The way she went after a story, those smiles she gave him, that _walk_ and then those late night drinks – Merlin, it was enough to send any man mad, let alone Draco. He had tried, honest to Merlin _tried_ to not imagine what her thighs looked like beneath her robes, or focus on the way her mouth looked when she sucked on her quill in thought. Draco imagined that given their history it was a bloody good show on her part to become friends, and he did not want to fuck it up. He didn’t fear Potter or Weasley’s wrath; she was formidable enough on her own.

Sod Jonathan, she was _his_ , and Draco was determined to remind her of that. “Not so hasty, sweetheart, nothing's official yet.”

“I've been asking for these papers for months, Draco. You know Jonathan and I are waiting on this.” 

“Come on, why are you marrying this bloke? I've known you to prepare for exams for longer than you've prepared for this marriage,” he couldn’t resist taunting, and it was true. He was blindingly jealous about the entire thing, but even rationally he recognised it didn’t make sense. This was _Hermione_ , his meticulous, cautious wife. She didn’t do anything without a plan; even their wedding had been arranged with military precision.

“Don't be ridiculous Draco, it doesn't become you.”

“It's been at least half a year since we were hurling staplers and highlighters at one another, can't you at least try to be civil?” 

“So long?” Hermione asked, she toyed with the stapler on his desk menacingly. “It seems like I threw one at you only yesterday.”

“Maybe it was yesterday; have you been seeing me in your dreams, sweetheart?” Draco smirked. The first time they’d fought in his office after she had moved out, he ended up fucking her against a bookcase. 

Hermione snorted. “More like my nightmares.”

“Aw, c'mon, don't be mean. You make a bloke feel unwanted.”

“I hear you've had plenty of women to make you feel _wanted_.” 

Draco smirked bitterly. Of course there’d been other women – he was a Malfoy and he had a reputation to uphold. Faceless women he found in clubs and bars when he was tired and desperate and just wanted _her_. Besides, she was on the one with the new fiancé. “Jealous?” he asked, because he certainly was.

“Of your latest little trollop? Hardly. Now if you'll just sign-” she began, but was cut off when Thaddeus, his owl, swooped into Draco’s office dropped a roll of parchment into his hands – quietening Hermione tirade as her innate nosiness was piqued. 

Draco delighted in reading the contents of the parchment – the news he’d been waiting for all week. While he would never admit the fact to Hermione, he had asked an old Slytherin friend to do some investigating into Hermione’s new fiancé. His findings were intriguing to Draco, to say the least. Apparently, not only was Hermione’s fiancé gay, but had also been spotted on many occasions with none other than _The Boy Who Lived_ over the last two years. So much for moving on, Draco thought with satisfaction. His suspicions had paid off; Hermione was as much his as she ever was – he now just needed to convince her of this. 

**

“Abigail said your ex paid you a visit today.”

Draco looked up from his desk and saw his second unexpected visitor of the day stroll into his office. “Blaise,” he greeted his old school friend cordially. “She asked me to sign the divorce papers again.”

“And you still haven’t, I take it?” Blaise sighed.

“She’s still my wife; we’re going to get back together,” Draco told him confidently. He knew he sounded a bit like a desperate prat, but he also knew Hermione, and knew they made sense.

Blaise sighed. “You told me that two months ago, then she turned up with that fiancé in tow!”

“It’s a ruse. He’s gay – Potter’s boyfriend! She’s doing it so he can stay in the country – she’s too kind for her own good, that one. It’s going to work out perfectly. We’ll be back together in time for her to drag me to her mother’s for that ridiculous Muggle ritual in December.”

“Does she know this?”

“We were always good together,” Draco told his friend. “She’ll see sense. It was all a misunderstanding… a rather large misunderstanding. I never expected her to actually leave me because I wouldn’t tell her what Father got me for my sixteenth birthday.”

“Yeah, so you said.” 

They had been through this before, several times, Blaise reminding Draco time and time again that they were intrinsically different. The war, the wealth, the class aside… Hermione believed in the truth – she brandished it like a shield, and Draco? Draco preferred sarcasm and subterfuge over her incessant honesty and _goodness_. Blaise was surprised they’d lasted beyond a month.

“Whatever, s’none of your business and anyway, just because your Mrs. is the office gossip.”

Blaise shrugged apathetically. “You’ve done a supremely good job convincing yourself you’ll get her back, but you’ve done nothing to actually facilitate this.”

“Oh fuck off, Zabini,” Draco replied, snapping. His friend had a point, but he didn’t need to actually _hear_ it. He’d felt an initial high when he’d learnt Hermione hadn’t moved on with Jack or John or whatever, but that didn’t erase the fact that she’d left him anyway.

It was just _so_ hard; whenever he did get the smallest chance to see her, he would smirk the wrong way or she would say something that twisted him just so and he never got the chance to turn on the charm and win her back. Draco needed somewhere quiet, secluded, unexpected, just so he could explain. Merlin, despite this afternoon’s revelation, at this point he would even be willing to grovel to get her to see sense. 

He just needed to see Hermione properly. Draco had thought that getting her alone when they had first started seeing one another had been a mission, with Potter or Weasley conveniently popping up whenever Draco got Hermione alone. The first time he had his hand in her knickers in her flat and the whir of the floo alerted them to Potter’s arrival Draco had wanted to kill something. At least then she’d wanted to spend time with him – now Draco not only has to find some alone time with her, but corner her for long enough to listen to him.

**

It took Draco two further weeks of fobbing Hermione off with “Blaise is sick”, “Blaise is on leave”, “Blaise’s floo connection is down” while he plotted and planned and schemed and tried desperately to think of a way to get Hermione’s attention and shut her up for five minutes so he could explain. Draco knew he could write her a note and ask her to meet him, but she’d be defensive before she’d even arrive and it was simply bound to go wrong.

Half-heartedly browsing _The Quibbler_ as he stood in line for the floo one evening, Draco’s plan startled into action. It was a cold October afternoon and he was flicking through the rag more to occupy his hands than anything else when he stumbled upon it. There, in tiny print beneath an advert for Flobberworm Repellent, was an article on the value of the galleon written by his estranged wife. Draco ground his teeth; she’d gone from having the headlines on Gringrotts and the Ministry and Potter’s latest escapades to _this_!

It wasn’t a surprise, of course; her career decision had caused as much as arguing as the break-up itself, but looking at her name under that pathetic article made Draco shudder. Merlin knew she was so much better than this. Seeing it in print only reminded him of how much she had given up and it was exactly then that the idea came to him – how to convince her! She never could resist the temptation of a good story.

Safety – his, hers, a rather snappy old hag called Mildred on one memorable occasion – had been compromised a number of times in her efforts to uncover the truth. Stories had trumped dates, lunches and Christmas shopping. The two of them had missed one of the Weasley’s thirtieths when a lead about a corrupt employee at the Ministry had lead to the two of them stuck in a broom closet _spying_ on said employee for sixteen hours with only a packet of violet creams to sustain them.

“What is he _doing_?” she’d hissed.

Three hours. Three long, monotonous hours of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon spent squashed in a cramped, dusty closet, eating the soapy tasting chocolates she had stashed in her handbag. Draco could think of other things he would much rather be doing, other things that didn’t involve dusty closets but most definitely involved his wife in the close quarters they were in. 

Of course, the alternative to the closet was probably the Burrow and he’d rather suffer through this than risk catching freckles.

“Hermione,” he replied. Loudly. “Why are you whispering? You cast a silencing charm. We could fuck against this door and he wouldn’t hear a thing.”

“Shh!” Hermione retorted, and proceeded to try and manoeuvre herself closer to the peephole, wriggling against Draco just _so_ in the meantime.

“In fact…” Draco continued, and sidled from her side to right behind where she was bent to peer through the keyhole.

Hermione swatted away Draco’s hand. “We’re working!”

“You’re working,” he replied, and lent forward so he was pressed against the length of her body. “I’m just along for the ride.”

Hermione shushed him again, helplessly swatting against his hands. Draco was playing with the fastening on her skirt.

“C’mon Hermione,” he whispered against her neck. He kissed that spot behind her ear, swept his hands around her front and across her hips and she’d bucked back into him and just like that she let the story go for the time being and fell into him.

They’d both always been workaholics, but they’d always made time for each other. _That_ had never been a problem. Later, after the spying, and after a late appearance at that birthday party, she’d asked him about the Hogwarts broom closets – if he’d ever had any girls in there.

“C’mon Hermione,” he said again, in an entirely different tone. He was well aware it was almost a squirm.

“I’m only asking,” she tutted, and stalked off into the study to finish her story. 

Two days later there was a huge rather large departmental overhaul following the publication of her story. Apparently, missing the Weasley’s birthday had indeed been worth more than a shag in the broom closet.

Draco smirked as he stepped into the floo; all he had to do was find the right story to ensnare her, and he’d have her attention all right.

**

“Draco,” his wife greeted him over the floo. She could have been spitting “Malfoy” in school for all the venom in her voice. Draco was rather glad he was putting his plan into action, suddenly feeling, with a strange contraction in his chest, that he was close to running out of time.

“I need to tell you about something.”

Hermione actually snorted at him, and Draco knew he should have been prepared for that. There was a time she had begged him to tell her anything. Perhaps he should invent a potential love interest to talk about to ruffle her feathers – see how she dealt with that. He had been spectacularly gracious about the whole Jonathan scenario, even before he knew it was a ruse. Angry, sarcastic and downright rude, perhaps, but he certainly hadn’t been as bad as he could have been. Couldn’t she just see he was _trying_? Perhaps inventing a relationship wasn’t the best thing to do if he was indeed trying to be more open – Draco was fairly sure that was what she wanted, anyway.

“Look,” he started again, trying to use his newsroom voice. At this stage he didn’t think there was much point in using the tone of voice that won him cheeky cups of tea when it was his turn to put the kettle on. “I just want to show you something.”

“Draco, we are through. _Over_. You can’t send me owls about your latest debacle with the milkman, or ask me to deal with your mother on your behalf, or say you want to show me things.”

“Please, I think I’m onto something big and I don’t want to blow it. It’s important.” He was baiting her carefully, not wanting to give too much away too soon. He wanted to say ‘But the Jonathan thing isn’t real’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘Just give me a chance’, but he knew it wasn’t yet the right time.

Hermione bit her lip. “Draco, I don’t work for the _Prophet_ anymore…”

“Please Hermione,” he said again, this time with the please-make-me-a-cup-of-tea voice. Then he went in for the kill: “It’s at Hogwarts.”

How could she resist _that_? He was a bloody genius, and she would be his again before all the kiddies at Hogwarts were tucking into their breakfasts the next morning.

**

Draco had sent Thaddeus early the next morning, instructing Hermione to meet him in the Shrieking Shack. He had planned to arrive forty minutes ahead of time; he should have known that his bloody wife would be a full hour early. He was exhausted, overwrought and suddenly felt ill-prepared when he arrived at the Shack to find her already there.

Hermione was perched primly at the foot of a four-poster bed that had definitely seen better days, though she seemed to absolutely sparkle in the dim, dusty room. A quill was tucked neatly behind her ear, and parchment was spilling out of the leather satchel she was rooting through. Her eyes were full of concern and excitement. 

“Draco.” She stood up and walked over to him. This was the closest they’d been in weeks. The closest they’d been _alone_ in months.

“Hermione,” Draco greeted. His throat was dry and his voice cracked over her name. When did he become this much of a pillock? He knew the answer to this, of course: it was the exact time he let her walk out on their marriage. He’d been such an idiot, and now he needed to make it right.

Hermione had her quill and parchment out, about to begin interrogating him on the nature of his fictional story. Suddenly he felt as though the words he had been crafting all night would fall upon deaf ears. What kind of plan was this?

**Author's Note:**

> Started a very long time ago, and only recently finished in a pique of nostalgia. Very much Jossed.
> 
> Chapters two and three are almost complete and coming very soon.


End file.
